Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

     I'm not quite ready to call myself a runner yet, despite my sunburned shoulders and nose, from my lunchtime feast of climbing hills and patting the much too warm pavement. I've always been my very worst critic; harder on myself than any person should probably even be on a stranger. I stopped a few times; just to walk for a minute; I actually looked at the 60 seconds pass as I caught my breath at the top of the hill and started running again. Ahhhh, running again; it's all I've wanted to do since I stopped running.
I felt the wind in my face as my feet pounded the hard sidewalk; nothing was better than coming down the hill that you struggled to climb at the start of your run. Nothing was better than your legs and feet gliding back to the start with no pain; well except for maybe the cold bottle of water that was waiting at the finish.
Running has always been a place for me to go that delivered a sense of peace. It's always much the same; the start is not that fun; waiting for the body and mind to come to life. It usually takes me about 8 minutes to feel alive and just like that; rainbows and fireworks! No, seriously; rainbows and fireworks, and if you don't believe it; you must download Josh Groban singing, "Somewhere over the Rainbow", as you tackle your hardest hill and truly feel like you can fly when you finally realize you've reached the top...

I'm still battling my old 4 mile loop; the same loop that I was running as a young soldier, a young mother and now as a daughter recovering from the loss of my wonderful father. Sometimes, life becomes so not full of "Life" that we completely forget what brings us to "Life". Today I remembered and hopefully, too many days won't pass again where I will allow myself to forget. Maybe I will even consider calling myself a runner again after all. Surely, if Home is Where the Heart is then a runner must also be the product of where his happy heart is  as well.
Run on my friends...